


Soft Inside

by ThereIsOnlyZuul



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 11:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19811503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsOnlyZuul/pseuds/ThereIsOnlyZuul
Summary: Kyo used to be nothing but hard. But Tohru makes him soft. A story about a day out with Tohru and what it is about her that makes Kyo so soft inside. ONE-SHOT.





	Soft Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Kyo and Tohru are one of my all-time favourite pairs. And with me re-reading the series once again I couldn't resist whipping up another piece of cute, lovey fanfic about the two. Check out my other Tohru/Kyo fanfic Selfish if you're interested in more!
> 
> Cheers!

_I wonder what it is about her that has me so transfixed?_ Kyo found himself thinking as he stole sidelong glances at Tohru Honda.

Tohru sat beside him on the subway train they were taking to one place or another in the city; Kyo hadn’t really heard what Tohru had said after she had asked him if he wanted to spend the day with her. He was eager to spend time with her, no matter what or where she was going. She could have been visiting the seven levels of Hell and Kyo would have gladly tagged along.

_Maybe it’s her smile,_ he thought as she looked over her slender shoulder and gave Kyo a totally random, completely charming smile. She was always doing that. When the two had first met, Kyo thought it was because she didn’t have a solid thought in her head. She was always wispy and happy and going out of her way to help other people. But it wasn’t because she wasn’t intelligent. No, she was just a genuinely happy person. Kyo hadn’t ever really met anyone who was genuinely happy with life coming from the cursed family that he did. His own life as the cat of the zodiac didn’t and wouldn’t ever lead to a happy ending.

But his sad life seemed a little less sad when she smiled at him.

“So where are we going now?” He asked, slumping further down in the uncomfortable subway seat, trying to appear cool and unfazed by Tohru’s charms.

“To this wonderful little bakery I used to go to with Mom!” She smiled back. “They sell these little strawberry tarts that I think Yuki will really like.” She looked over her shoulder to see that Kyo’s face had darkened at the mention of his long-standing rival Yuki the rat. “And I’m sure they’ll have something that you’ll really like too!” Tohru stammered in wide-eyed panic when she was flustered or concerned. It made Kyo’s heart melt.

Everything about her was just so _right_. Her laugh, her smile, the way her brow furrowed when she was thinking or worried. She brought out the good in everyone around her with her selflessness. Yuki smiled more, Shigure moped less, but he found himself the most susceptible to her charms. She made him feel soft when he was all hard inside.

He remembered the first time Tohru had made him feel soft inside. It was after he’d gone with her and her friends to visit her mother’s grave. Later that day he’d found her napping on the _engawa_ around the back of Shigure’s house. It had gotten chilly, the sun had been replaced by dark clouds. It was the perfect way for her to catch a cold and get sick and Kyo had tried to shake her awake to stop that from happening.

The ditz had simply smiled and rolled closer to him, mumbling something in her sleep that he couldn’t understand. He sat down beside her, crossing his legs and leaning over her contented form as she slept.

He’d had a feeling in his chest then. The same feeling he had now, in this moment. He hadn’t known what to call it then. But he knew now.

Maybe he’d never know for sure the exact thing that drew him to her, what exactly it was that had him so wrapped around her little finger. But Kyo knew for sure that he wanted Tohru. That he _loved_ her even.

When had she gone from being just an obnoxious girl who lived at Shigure’s to a beautiful woman he couldn’t get off his mind?

Kyo was brought out of his thoughts by Tohru’s hand gripping his wrist. “This is our stop!” She exclaimed with a bright eyed smile.

“Alright, alright, calm down!”

It was advice Tohru didn’t take. She jumped up like an excited puppy, dragging Kyo with her because she was still gripping his wrist in her surprisingly vise-like little hand.

The people sitting near Tohru must have thought that she had never ridden the subway before the way she raced to the door in anticipation of it opening. She released Kyo’s wrist to happily clap as the doors swished open and released them onto the platform. The private school girls that were sitting beside the door giggled and pointed, no doubt making fun of the pair.

It would have pissed Kyo off before. Would have made his back arch like a cornered alley cat and he’d go hissing and swatting at whatever was threatening him. But not now. Not with Tohru. The smile she had on her beautiful face made everything else around him disappear, instead of him wishing so desperately that he would disappear.

He had always gotten so defensive because he hated to be looked down upon. And that’s all anyone ever did to him. He was left out of everything and looked down upon by the zodiac–by absolutely _everyone_ who knew about his unlucky lot in life. Even his own parents had.

Well, not Tohru. She never had. What a world of difference it made to know that there was one person that wanted to be his friend, not out of pity, or some sick delusion, but because she liked _him_.

“It’s this way,” Tohru said in her matter-of-fact way as she headed to the station exit.

“Are you sure?” Kyo asked, crossing his arms over his chest and not budging an inch. 

“Of course I am!” She exclaimed.

“How many times have you gotten lost before?”

“I know where I’m going! I’m sure of it!”

“Prove it.”

Tohru nodded resolutely, taking Kyo’s hand in her own to lead him to–where was it they were going again? A bakery? It didn’t matter, Kyo had gotten what he wanted with Tohru’s small, cool hand in his own. She had a habit of leading the Sohmas around by holding their hands. Just another little thing she did when she wanted to help. A while ago he’d noticed she did it to him when he was being stubborn.

If he hadn’t made a habit of being stubborn before, he certainly did now, if only for the few fleeting moments that Tohru’s hand was in his and he could pretend that he was a normal boy that could have a normal relationship with the girl he had so suddenly fallen in love with.

It was another of his soft inside moments.

Tohru held his hand right up until they reached their destination where she dropped his hand, and what she had been talking about mid-sentence, and rushed to press her face against the bakery’s window. Just like a little kid would. Kyo smiled again at her silly behaviour, not worrying about the looks from the strangers that passed them.

“They’ve got so much good stuff today!”

“Then let’s go in,” Kyo grabbed the top her head and steered her towards the front door of the shop. This was how he’d been directing her around since he’d met her. Though he did it a lot more gently nowadays.

Tohru needed little direction once she was inside the bakery. She rushed over to the display case and pressed her face against it. “The strawberry tarts look so tasty today! What do you want, Kyo?”

“Cheesecake, maybe? American style if they have it.” He’d always been partial to cheesecake. It was the cat spirit in him.

“Hmm…” Tohru looked through the cases for Kyo’s request. She was also no doubt looking for a sweet treat for Shigure, Momiji, Hanajima, Haru, Kisa and every other person on Earth besides herself. That theory was proven true when the man behind the counter asked her what she wanted and she started listing off the dozen different things she was going to get.

“Idiot,” he mumbled to himself with a smile. After all the Sohma family had taken from her and still she was going to give more. And willingly at that, with money she worked her fingers to the bone it get!

There was another employee behind the counter that Kyo hadn’t noticed upon first entering. It was a teenage girl. Probably the owner’s daughter. Another employee was good. With the amount of stuff Tohru was getting, a line would probably form before too long.

“Can I help you with anything?” She asked when her eyes briefly met Kyo’s.

“No, I’m just with…” Kyo glanced over at Tohru again, she was smiling away as she chatted with the man who was boxing each of the treats she had selected. He knew she wasn’t going to get anything for herself. So he decided then and there he would be the one to treat her. “Actually, yeah.”

“What would you like?”

Kyo thought to what Tohru liked. It was everything. There wasn’t a thing she didn’t like. The girl was easy to please, shedding tears at any small gift or show of affection. What’s something that she would _really_ like though?

“What’s the cutest item you’ve got?”

“The cutest?”

Kyo moved closer to the counter, gesturing his head towards Tohru. “It’ll be for her.”

“Oh,” the girl said with a smile. “how sweet! Let’s see, our cutest item would probably be these here,” she pointed downwards into the case Kyo was leaning on.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Below Kyo were donuts, glazed in pastel coloured icing and decorated in a cutesy cat design.

“Are cats not to her liking?”

Were cats to Tohru’s liking? Was _one_ cat in particular to Tohru’s liking? Kyo glanced over to her just in time to catch her eye and have her smile at him. God, that smile. It was like she was seeing him for the first time in years and not just from across a shop that they’d entered together and would leave together. 

He was the cat and Tohru Honda liked him. Loved him even, if what he saw in her eyes when she looked at him wasn’t just a fantasy of his own mind’s creation projecting itself on to her. She saw past his temper and his short fallings but, most importantly, she saw past the cat spirit that inhabited his body. Tohru saw him as a person. She was the only one that did.

“No, very much to her liking,” he said when her attention was drawn away from him again. “I’ll take two of each colour.”

That was six altogether, with two blue, two pink, and two yellow. Kyo worried that Tohru would see the purchase and the surprise would be ruined, but Kyo’s cutesy donuts were boxed, wrapped up with string, and paid for before Tohru had even finished deciding what sort of cupcake to get for Haru. Kyo didn’t even have to worry about Tohru noticing the box in his hands when they left since she got so much he needed to help her carry it all.

The walk to the subway station was perilous with so many easily smushed objects needing to be balanced just right, but their train came in as soon as they got there and they dropped into empty seats right away.

“I got Yuki two strawberry tarts and Shigure some mochi,” Tohru said as she carefully arranged the boxes on her lap. “And the cheesecake was fresh out of the oven so I got you two slices and–”

“And what did you get yourself?” Kyo asked.

“Oh, nothing today,” she said with a smile and a shrug.

“Don’t you think you deserve nice things, Tohru?”

She smiled then, one of her small, thoughtful smiles. It was the smile she only ever seemed to give to him, a wonderful little secret between the two of them. “It’s a nice thing that you came out with me. That you’ve been with me all day. That’s all I need.”

There she went again, softening him like winter ice under a springtime sun.

“Tohru, I have some…” He had wanted to save giving her the donuts until later when they were in private, but he couldn’t deny her the sweetness after the sweetness she’d just given him. “Here,” he said as he pulled his box out from under hers.

She cocked her head to the side as she took the box. “I don’t remember buying this…”

“That’s because I bought it!”

“When?”

“At the bakery!”

“For who?”

“For you! You are such a space-case!” He exclaimed, but not unkindly. Her head-in-the-clouds mentality didn’t annoy him anymore, it charmed him.

“For me?” Tears were already collecting in the corners of her eyes. They began to cascade down her cheeks in earnest when she opened the box and saw what was inside. “Oh, Kyo…”

Gently, as if she were handling an actual kitten, Tohru pulled out one of the donuts: a pink one, with the cat face drawn on in lilac coloured icing.

“I knew you weren’t going to get anything for yourself and I didn’t want you to be left out. So I hope you like donuts.”

Tohru’s tears stopped long enough for her to open her mouth and cram the whole pink cat donut into it.

“I guess you really like donuts.”

She opened her mouth to say something but all that came out was muffled nonsense and crumbs.

“Chew your food, you idiot!” He exclaimed as he brushed some of the crumbs off himself.

Tohru did as told, as quickly as she could, before replying: “I love donuts! And they’re so cute! Little cats… given to me by my big cat… Thank you, Kyo!”

Kyo wished more than anything that they were in private. She’d called him “her big cat”. He was hers! And he just wanted to wrap his arms around her for an embrace. Even just for the second before he transformed it would be the sweetest sensation.

Tohru rested her head on his shoulder though, and offered him a donut, and smiled her small, thoughtful, secret smile that was just for him, and that was enough to make him soft inside again.

Tohru would melt him completely one day, make him so soft he’d never reform into anything hard again. He’d be as soft as the cat donuts she was continuing to shed so many happy tears over.

And he honestly couldn’t wait. He wanted to be soft for Tohru forever and always.


End file.
